Sam's journey north of the Wall was BR's doing

[40 Thousand Skeletons]

Recently I posted the final part of my grand theory. One primary aspect of the theory is that Bloodraven and the other greenseers in the weirnet, aka The Old Gods, are responsible for manipulating many of the events in the story. I started this thread just to talk about their manipulation of Sam's journey while he is north of the Wall, as it is a clear example of their manipulation and generally a big contributing factor to why I came up with my grand theory in the first place. Because, I used to think it was just a huge, unbelievable coincidence that Sam ended up separated from the rest of the NW and let Bran through the Wall. And then later, I stopped believing it was a coincidence at all. I'll provide some brief context, but if you want the full context feel free to check out that link (warning: it is... quite long).

Context: Bran and the gang have been guided north (heading to the Wall) by the nefarious Old Gods. The Old Gods want Bran to make it to the cave with BR, and they don't want him captured or hunted down on the way there. This is a huge risk because Bran's presence would shake up the entire political situation in the North and thus many people would be motivated to capture him, pretty much everyone in the North in fact. At this point the Old Gods have already managed to fake Bran's death (primarily by sending dreams to Ramsay) and then got him to leave Winterfell and head north to find BR (primarily by sending dreams to Jojen). But there is an obvious obstacle in the way: The Wall. And more specifically, the Night's Watch. If Bran is to maintain his cover story of being dead, and more importantly not get taken prisoner by the NW, he needs a way past the Wall without using one of the standard 3 gates. Otherwise he is going to end up either a hostage of the Boltons or a King for the North to rally behind (and that's what Jon will probably be used for, not Bran). Luckily, there is an abandoned secret gate that can be opened by a man of the NW... how convenient...

So what do the Old Gods do? Well obviously, 1) they send a vision to Jojen informing him of a gate at the Nightfort, and 2) they lead Sam on a horrifying journey to the Nightfort to let Bran and the gang through. Additionally, Sam has promised to keep the fact that Bran is alive a secret, because he thinks he "owes his life" to Coldhands, which is HILARIOUS and not true, because Coldhands is totally BFFs with the assholes who tormented Sam in the first place and made him believe their lives were in ultra danger.

And unrelated to that other stuff, I think the attack on LC Mormont was a false flag operation carried out by the Old Gods. The rest of this post is mostly copied from that link. Cue the journey of Samwise Gamgee Samwell Tarly:

Sam’s storyline with regards to the Others is unbelievably suspicious, and it all begins at the fist. First, Ghost finds the dragonglass and the horn that are given to Sam. The horn is likely the Horn of Winter and will be vital to the story in some fashion, and the dragonglass dagger is later used by Sam to kill a WW. Then, the wights attack the fist.

Our first glimpse of the attack is in the ASOS prologue, from the pov of Chett. Chett is about to kill Sam, but Sam is miraculously saved by an army of wights attacking the Fist. Then we get the details of the attack from Sam’s inner monologue as he is wandering through the snow, some period of time later. In the opening paragraph, GRRM hits us over the head with the idea that the Old Gods may be meddling here when Sam thinks: They’re not my feet, they’re someone else’s, someone else is walking, it can’t be me. I’m not sure if the Old Gods are somehow inside Sam’s head here, but I will point out he acts amazingly stupid. Before recalling the details of the attack for us readers, Sam laments his current situation. He is sobbing and can’t go on. The snow won’t stop, and it is already up past his knees. And it has been vaguely some amount of time probably more than a day since the attack with no rest. Sam notes that he has to pull up his sword belt every 4 steps because his scabbard weighs it down, except he also says that he lost his sword, so why is he keeping the heavy useless scabbard instead of just throwing it away? Similarly, he is keeping a heavy chainmail hauberk on even though he is exhausted and his shoulders are in “agony”, and he only has a loose surcoat and a cloak over the chainmail. But Sam fears the cold, because apparently it is really damn cold where he is. Keep in mind that Jon is pretty close by at this point and it is only snowing lightly, while Sam can only see 3 yards in front of him. Jon even notes shortly after the attack that it is colder on the eastern bank of the river (near the Fist). It seems like the weather is being manipulated by someone, though it is unclear if it is the Old Gods or the WW. Similarly, we aren’t sure who is controlling the wights either. Although the general belief is that blue-eyed wights are being controlled by the Others, we don’t have any proof of that.

Anyways, Sam recalls the details of the slaughter, and we get some more suspicious horse activities. Once the wights breach the ringwall, Mormont sounds the call to mount up and Sam runs over to the fire, though he doesn’t remember running. Then a riderless horse came by and kicked Ser Ottyn Wythers in the face. Sam then remembers being on a horse - maybe the one that killed Ser Ottyn - but doesn’t recall mounting up either. Then Sam manages to clear the ringwall even though he has never jumped a horse before. After walking for an unknown length of time, Sam is tripped by a tree root, falls down, and cannot stand back up. Grenn tries to kick Sam into standing up, but fails. A moment later, Small Paul is there and makes the insane decision to carry Sam. Why did Small Paul do this? Well, probably because BR had been manipulating him for some time through a telepathic connection via Mormont’s raven, and so Small Paul asks Sam if he can have one of his ravens. Sam tells Paul that all the ravens flew away at the Fist and apologizes. But a few minutes later, when some nameless brothers tell Paul to leave Sam behind, Paul says Sam promised him a bird, and that he wants a bird that talks and eats corn from his hand.

After they fall behind the rest of the NW, they are attacked by a WW. Small Paul charges it and conveniently manages to pull the sword out of the WW’s grip when he dies. Sam takes advantage of the moment to kill the WW with the obsidian dagger Jon gave him, and he and Grenn catch up with the rest of the NW. So to summarize, the attack on the Fist accomplished many things, including: a WW is killed by the NW (increasing motivations for war and giving the NW the knowledge to kill more), Sam’s life is ironically saved, the mutiny is delayed, and the wildling army is left untouched on its way to the Wall. And the events surrounding Sam were facilitated by Ghost finding the cache of obsidian weapons, the wights attacking, a suspiciously murderous and athletic horse, and a suspiciously insane bird-obsessed Small Paul.

The next big event of Sam's journey is the mutiny at Craster's and his flight with Gilly. This solo venture separated from the rest of the NW was facilitated by Sam's mysterious catatonic state forcing his friends to leave him behind. I don't know if the Old Gods can cause these mental states, but similar mental states happened to Cat right before confronting Jaime (and making him swear his famous oath) and Jon right before fighting UnOthor.

Later, upon arriving at a random wildling village, Sam ironically prays for the old gods to protect them. Then they are attacked by wights who kill their horse. Like Jon, Sam has a dramatic near-death experience fighting a wight in hand-to-hand combat and wins by burning it. Miraculously, right before Sam and Gilly are killed, they are saved by a bunch of ravens, and the raven on Sam’s shoulder tells him to run. Finally, they are rescued by Coldhands. And really, it is hard to imagine a non-stressful scenario in which you would accept any sort of aid from a zombie.